ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8824-7491
Current Organisation
Oregon State University
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Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 28-01-2022
Abstract: The present study replicated and extended prior findings of suboptimal automation use in a signal detection task, benchmarking automation-aided performance to the predictions of several statistical models of collaborative decision making. Though automated decision aids can assist human operators to perform complex tasks, operators often use the aids suboptimally, achieving performance lower than statistically ideal. Participants performed a simulated security screening task requiring them to judge whether a target (a knife) was present or absent in a series of colored X-ray images of passenger baggage. They completed the task both with and without assistance from a 93%-reliable automated decision aid that provided a binary text diagnosis. A series of three experiments varied task characteristics including the timing of the aid's judgment relative to the raw stimuli, target certainty, and target prevalence. Automation-aided performance fell closest to the predictions of the most suboptimal model under consideration, one which assumes the participant defers to the aid's diagnosis with a probability of 50%. Performance was similar across experiments. Results suggest that human operators' performance when undertaking a naturalistic search task falls far short of optimal and far lower than prior findings using an abstract signal detection task.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2009
DOI: 10.1080/00140130802376059
Abstract: Visual search tasks are often carried out under high levels of time stress. Transportation security screeners, for ex le, face demands to achieve high levels of accuracy while maintaining rapid passenger throughput. An experiment examined the strategies by which operators regulate visual search performance under such conditions. Observers performed a simulated baggage-screening task under instructions to emphasise either response speed or accuracy. Behavioural measures and eye movements were recorded. Observers made fewer and briefer fixations under emphasise-speed than under emphasise-accuracy instructions. Losses in accuracy were produced by more frequent failures to fixate on targets and a decrease in the detection rate of non-fixated targets. The likelihood with which observers detected a fixated target was similar across speed-accuracy instructions. Results will inform efforts to model visual search in naturalistic tasks, allowing more accurate prediction of response times and error rate and may aid the design of training programmes and other interventions to improve search performance under stress.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-01-2011
Abstract: Objective: An experiment studied the frequency and correlates of driver mind wandering. Background: Driver mind wandering is associated with risk for crash involvement. The present experiment examined the performance and attentional changes by which this effect might occur. Method: Participants performed a car-following task in a high-fidelity driving simulator and were asked to report any time they caught themselves mind wandering. Vehicle control and eye movement data were recorded. Results: As compared with their attentive performance, participants showed few deficits in vehicle control while mind wandering but tended to focus visual attention narrowly on the road ahead. Conclusion: Data suggest that mind wandering can engender a failure to monitor the environment while driving. Application: Results identify behavioral correlates and potential risks of mind wandering that might enable efforts to detect and mitigate driver inattention.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-04-2013
Abstract: A pair of simulated driving experiments studied the effects of cognitive load on drivers’ lane-keeping performance. Cognitive load while driving often reduces the variability of lane position. However, there is no agreement as to whether this effect should be interpreted as a performance loss, consistent with other effects of distraction on driving, or as an anomalous performance gain. Participants in a high-fidelity driving simulator performed a lane-keeping task in lateral wind, with instructions to keep a steady lane position. Under high load conditions, participants performed a concurrent working memory task with auditory stimuli. Cross-spectral analysis measured the relationship between wind force and steering inputs. Cognitive load reduced the variability of lane position and increased the coupling between steering wheel position and crosswind strength. Although cognitive load disrupts driver performance in a variety of ways, it produces a performance gain in lane keeping. This effect appears to reflect drivers’ efforts to protect lateral control against the risk of distraction, at the apparent neglect of other elements of driving performance. Results may inform educational efforts to help drivers understand the risks of distraction and the inadequacies of compensatory driving strategies.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2003
Abstract: Research has demonstrated that oculomotor visual search is guided by memory for which items or locations within a display have already been inspected. In the study reported here, we used a gaze-contingent search paradigm to examine properties of this memory. Data revealed a memory buffer for search history of three to four items. This buffer was effected in part by a space-based trace attached to a location independently of whether the object that had been seen at that position remained visible, and was subject to interference from other stimuli seen in the course of a trial.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2013
DOI: 10.1037/A0034546
Abstract: An experiment and modeling effort examined interactions between bottom-up and top-down attentional control in visual alert detection. Participants performed a manual tracking task while monitoring peripheral display channels for alerts of varying salience, eccentricity, and spatial expectancy. Spatial expectancy modulated the influence of salience and eccentricity alerts in low-probability locations engendered higher miss rates, longer detection times, and larger costs of visual clutter and eccentricity, indicating that top-down attentional control offset the costs of poor bottom-up stimulus quality. Data were compared to the predictions of a computational model of scanning and noticing that incorporates bottom-up and top-down sources of attentional control. The model accounted well for the overall pattern of miss rates and response times, predicting each of the observed main effects and interactions. Empirical results suggest that designers should expect the costs of poor bottom-up visibility to be greater for low expectancy signals, and that the placement of alerts within a display should be determined based on the combination of alert expectancy and response priority. Model fits suggest that the current model can serve as a useful tool for exploring a design space as a precursor to empirical data collection and for generating hypotheses for future experiments.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2012
DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2011.619223
Abstract: Previous research has demonstrated that as task difficulty increases, task performance subsequently decreases. These decrements in task performance as difficulty increases have been attributed to the processes in iduals use to complete tasks. Over a series of three experiments, Potential Performance Theory (PPT Trafimow & Rice, 2008 2009), was used to test the hypothesis that decreases in task performance are, in part, due to inconsistency rather than only systematic factors. Task difficulty was manipulated in three visual search tasks by increasing set size (Experiment 1), decreasing contrast (Experiment 2), and increasing background distracters (Experiment 3). Findings over the three studies indicated that decreases in observed task performance as task difficulty increases are primarily due to a decrease of consistency rather than systematic factors. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-2011
Abstract: Objective: The present study developed and validated a stochastic model of overt attention within a visual workspace. Background: Technical specifications and recommended practices for the design of visual warning systems emphasize the role of alert salience. Task demands and display context can modulate alert noticeability, however, meaning that salience alone does not guarantee attention capture. Method: A stochastic model integrated elements from existing models of visual attention to predict attentional behavior in dynamic environments. Validation studies tested the predictions of the new model against scanning data from a high-fidelity simulator study and behavioral data from an alert detection experiment. Results: The model accurately predicted the steady-state distribution of attention within a simulated cockpit as well as the effects of color similarity, eccentricity, and dynamic visual noise on miss rates and response times in the alert detection task. Conclusion: The model successfully predicts attentional behavior in complex visual workspaces with the use of parameter values selected by either the modeler or a subject matter expert. Application: The model provides a tool to test the effectiveness of visual alerts in various display configurations and with varying task demands.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2010
DOI: 10.1177/154193121005402004
Abstract: Hedonomic design aims to make products not just easy to use, but pleasurable. Toward this goal, designers often use mood boards of abstract visual images to represent the aesthetic and affective response they would like their designs to evoke. We studied the effect of aging on viewers' ability to understand the meanings of abstract images selected by designers to express specific affective concepts. Young adult and older adult participants made visual judgment on the affective images. Data showed no age-related differences in the judgment accuracy. Results suggest that elderly adults can extract emotional meanings from young designers' mood boards as well as do young adults, and that affective product semantics may communicate similar meanings to users of different age group.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 11-02-2021
Abstract: The aim was to test the value of shared gaze as a way to improve team performance in a visual monitoring task. Teams outperform in iduals in monitoring tasks, but fall short of achievable levels. Shared-gaze displays offer a potential method of improving team efficiency. Within a shared-gaze arrangement, operators collaborate on a visual task, and each team member’s display includes a cursor to represent the other teammates’ point of regard. Past work has suggested that shared gaze allows operators to better communicate and coordinate their attentional scanning in a visual search task. The current experiments sought to replicate and extend earlier findings of inefficient team performance in a visual monitoring task, and asked whether shared gaze would improve team efficiency. Participants performed a visual monitoring task framed as a sonar operation. Displays were matrices of luminance patches varying in intensity. The participants’ task was to monitor for occasional critical signals, patches of high luminance. In Experiment 1, pairs of participants performed the task independently, or working as teams. In Experiment 2, teams of two participants performed the task with or without shared-gaze displays. In Experiment 1, teams detected more critical signals than in iduals, but were statistically inefficient detection rates were lower than predicted by a control model that assumed pairs of operators searching in isolation. In Experiment 2, shared gaze failed to increase target detection rates. Operators collaborate inefficiently in visual monitoring tasks, and shared gaze does not improve their performance.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-05-2009
DOI: 10.1007/S00221-009-1833-2
Abstract: The coordination of the oculomotor and manual effector systems is an important component of daily motor behavior. Previous work has primarily examined oculomotor/manual coordination in discrete targeting tasks. Here we extend this work to learning a tracking task that requires continuous response and movement update. Over two sessions, participants practiced controlling a computer mouse with movements of their arm to follow a target moving in a repeated sequence. Eye movements were also recorded. In a retention test, participants demonstrated sequence-specific learning with both effector systems, but differences between effectors also were apparent. Time series analysis and multiple linear regression were employed to probe spatial and temporal contributions to overall tracking accuracy within each effector system. Sequence-specific oculomotor learning occurred only in the spatial domain. By contrast, sequence-specific learning at the arm was evident only in the temporal domain. There was minimal interdependence in error rates for the two effector systems, underscoring their independence during tracking. These findings suggest that the oculomotor and manual systems learn contemporaneously, but performance improvements manifest differently and rely on different elements of motor execution. The results may in part be a function of what the motor learning system values for each effector as a function of its effector's inertial properties.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 06-2007
DOI: 10.1093/GERONB/62.SPECIAL_ISSUE_1.32
Abstract: The size of the functional field of view (FFOV) predicts driving safety in older adults ( Owsley et al., 1998), and practice-related changes in the FFOV may transfer to driving safety ( Roenker, Cissell, Ball, Wadley, & Edwards, 2003). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral measures to examine how practice with the FFOV task changes older adults' attentional function. Behavioral data collected outside of the MRI revealed that participants in the training group showed larger improvements across conditions than did those in the control group. fMRI data revealed training-related changes in activation in a number of brain regions. In the right precentral gyrus and right inferior frontal gyrus, increases in activation between fMRI sessions correlated positively with increases in accuracy between behavioral sessions. Practice with the FFOV task improves older adults' attentional function by increasing their recruitment of regions traditionally associated with orienting visual attention.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 16-05-2018
Abstract: Signal detection theory provides models of information integration that allow researchers to predict and benchmark collaborative performance in a visual search task. Naturalistic stimuli, however, may not conform to the simplifying assumptions—specifically, assumptions of equal-variance signal and noise distributions and stochastically independent observers—that are often made to make collaborative signal detection models tractable. Here, we used Bayesian hierarchical modeling of receiver operating characteristics to circumvent this difficulty. Participants (N = 28–32 per experiment) performed a simulated baggage x-ray screening task, working alone or in teams of two. Team performance was compared to the predictions of two versions of a uniform weighting model of information integration, one that assumed stochastically independent judgments from the two members of a team and one that allowed for correlated judgments. Across four experiments, teams fell short of the uncorrelated-judgment model’s predictions, but outperformed predictions based on the observed correlations in in idual judgments. Results imply motivational effects that improve in idual searchers’ effort under collaborative conditions, or collaborative strategies that effectively decorrelate the in idual searchers’ judgments.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-2010
Abstract: Objective: A pair of experiments investigated the hypothesis that bimodal (auditory-visual) speech presentation and expanded auditory bandwidth would improve speech intelligibility and increase working memory performance for older adults by reducing the cognitive effort needed for speech perception. Background: Although telephone communication is important for helping older adults maintain social engagement, age-related sensory and working memory limits may make telephone conversations difficult. Method: Older adults with either age-normal hearing or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss performed a running memory task. Participants heard word strings of unpredictable length and at the end of each string were required to repeat back the final three words. Words were presented monaurally in telephone bandwidth (300 Hz to 3300 Hz) or expanded bandwidth (50 Hz to 7500 Hz), in quiet (65 dBZ SPL), or in white noise (65 dBZ SPL with noise at 60 dBZ SPL), with or without a visual display of the talker. Results: In quiet listening conditions, bimodal presentation increased the number of words correctly reported per trial but only for listeners with hearing loss and with high lipreading proficiency. Stimulus bandwidth did not affect performance. In noise, bimodal presentation and expanded bandwidth improved performance for all participant groups but did so by improving speech intelligibility, not by improving working memory. Conclusion: Expanded bandwidth and bimodal presentation can improve speech perceptibility in difficult listening conditions but may not always improve working memory performance. Application: Results can inform the design of telephone features to improve ease of communication for older adults.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2008
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2007.10.005
Abstract: The flanker interference (FI) effect suggests that visual attention operates like a mental spotlight, enhancing all stimuli within a selected region. In contrast, other data suggest difficulty iding attention between objects near one another in the visual field, an effect termed localized attentional interference (LAI). The present experiment examined the relationship between these phenomena. Observers made speeded identity judgments of a colored target letter embedded among gray fillers. A response-compatible or -incompatible flanker of a non-target color appeared at varying distances from the target. Data gave evidence of LAI and spatially-graded FI, with mean RTs and flanker effects both decreasing with target-flanker separation. Both effects were reduced when target location was pre-cued and when the target was of higher salience than the flanker. Results suggest that the distribution of spatial attention modulates the strength of objects competing for selection, with this competition underlying both the FI and LAI effects.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2002
DOI: 10.3758/BF03196331
Abstract: To examine the role of perceptual object representations in the control of eye movements and attention, a pair of experiments adapted the object-cuing paradigm of Egly, Driver, and Rafal (1994) to require eye movements. Displays were pairs of adjacent rectangles, each containing two characters. Observers were asked to make a speeded judgment of a target character's orientation, and a cue was provided prior to target/distractor onset to indicate the target's likely location. Gaze-contingent presentation of target and distractors was used to demand overt scanning of displays. Eye movements during task performance evinced two forms of object-based effects. First, saccades following fixation on an invalidly cued item were more likely to be made within the cued rectangle than between rectangles. Second, saccades within the cued rectangle were preceded by shorter dwell times than saccades between rectangles. Extrafoveal processing of stimuli within the cued rectangle, however, was not facilitated, suggesting that covert attention was not allocated more densely within the cued than within the uncued object.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-04-2023
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-2004
DOI: 10.1111/J.0956-7976.2004.00673.X
Abstract: An experiment examined visual performance in a simulated luggage-screening task. Observers participated in five sessions of a task requiring them to search for knives hidden in x-ray images of cluttered bags. Sensitivity and response times improved reliably as a result of practice. Eye movement data revealed that sensitivity increases were produced entirely by changes in observers' ability to recognize target objects, and not by changes in the effectiveness of visual scanning. Moreover, recognition skills were in part stimulus-specific, such that performance was degraded by the introduction of unfamiliar target objects. Implications for screener training are discussed.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-10-2013
DOI: 10.1002/ACP.2955
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-2007
Abstract: Objective: Participants performed a tracking task and system monitoring task while aided by diagnostic automation. The goal of the study was to examine operator compliance and reliance as affected by automation failures and to clarify claims regarding independence of these two constructs. Background: Background data revealed a trend toward nonindependence of the compliance-reliance constructs. Method: Thirty-two undergraduate students performed the simulation that presented the visual display while dependent measures were collected. Results: False alarm—prone automation hurt overall performance more than miss-prone automation . False alarm—prone automation also clearly affected both operator compliance and reliance, whereas miss-prone automation appeared to affect only operator reliance. Conclusion: Compliance and reliance do not appear to be entirely independent of each other. Application: False alarms appear to be more damaging to overall performance than misses, and designers must take the compliance-reliance constructs into consideration.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-11-2012
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-012-0392-Y
Abstract: A pair of experiments investigated the architecture of visual processing, parallel versus serial, across high and low levels of spatial interference in a ided attention task. Subjects made speeded judgments that required them to attend to a pair of color-cued objects among gray filler items, with the spatial proximity between the attended items varied to manipulate the strength of interference between attended items. Systems factorial analysis (Townsend & Nozawa, Journal of Mathematical Psychology 39:321-359, 1995) was used to identify processing architecture. Experiment 1, using moderately dense displays, found evidence of parallel processing whether attended objects were in low or high proximity to one another. Experiment 2, using higher-density displays, found evidence of parallel selection when attended stimuli were widely separated but serial processing when they were in high proximity. Divided visual attention can operate in parallel under conditions of low or moderate spatial interference between selected items, but strong interference engenders serial processing.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2006
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2005.12.007
Abstract: Potential age-related differences in the memory processes that underlie visual search are examined in the present study. Using a dynamic, gaze-contingent search paradigm developed to assess memory for previously examined distractors, older adults demonstrated no memory deficit. Surprisingly, older adults made fewer refixations compared to their younger counterparts, indicating better memory for previously inspected objects. This improved memory was not the result of a speed-accuracy trade-off or larger Inhibition-of-Return effects for older than for younger adults. Additional analyses suggested that older adults may derive their benefit from finer spatial encoding of search items. These findings suggest that some of the memory processes that support visual search are relatively age invariant.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 25-01-2016
Abstract: An experiment used the workload capacity measure C( t) to quantify the processing efficiency of human–automation teams and identify operators’ automation usage strategies in a speeded decision task. Although response accuracy rates and related measures are often used to measure the influence of an automated decision aid on human performance, aids can also influence response speed. Mean response times (RTs), however, conflate the influence of the human operator and the automated aid on team performance and may mask changes in the operator’s performance strategy under aided conditions. The present study used a measure of parallel processing efficiency, or workload capacity, derived from empirical RT distributions as a novel gauge of human–automation performance and automation dependence in a speeded task. Participants performed a speeded probabilistic decision task with and without the assistance of an automated aid. RT distributions were used to calculate two variants of a workload capacity measure, C OR ( t) and C AND ( t). Capacity measures gave evidence that a diagnosis from the automated aid speeded human participants’ responses, and that participants did not moderate their own decision times in anticipation of diagnoses from the aid. Workload capacity provides a sensitive and informative measure of human–automation performance and operators’ automation dependence in speeded tasks.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 08-2006
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 24-04-2017
DOI: 10.1037/ARC0000030
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-2011
DOI: 10.1037/A0021566
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2007
DOI: 10.1068/P5598
Abstract: Modern theorists conceptualize visual selective attention as a competition between object representations for the control of extrastriate receptive fields, an account supported by the finding that attentional selection of one stimulus can degrade processing of nearby stimuli. In the present study the conditions that produce reciprocal interference between attended stimuli are examined. Each display contained either no, one, or two feature-defined target items among an array of homogeneous distractors. Observers performed two tasks, feature detection and object in iduation. The feature-detection task required observers to determine if any targets were present within the display. The object-in iduation task required observers to determine if the number of targets was exactly two. Spatially mediated interference between target pairs occurred in the object-in iduation task, but had no effect on feature detection. Results suggest that localized interference between attended stimuli occurs only when observers are required to resolve the features of in idual objects, consistent with the competitive interaction models of attention.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2016
Abstract: Complex workspaces often require operators to ide attention between information within the visual periphery and a visual central task. For an air traffic controller, for ex le, monitoring complex displays while also watching for potential hazards is essential for avoiding aircraft collisions. In such environments, fast and accurate detection of peripheral events may be critical for safe performance. Presenting targets redundantly offers a potential way of speeding up target detection (Little, Eidels, Fific, & Wang, 2015 Townsend & Eidels, 2011). It remains unclear, however, whether redundant-target processing remains efficient with a concurrent central task. A series of experiments examined the effects of dual-tasking on peripheral redundant-target processing, either between- (Experiments 1a & 1b) or within-participants (Experiment 4). Furthermore, Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated target-distractor discriminability and distractor presence to examine the effects of target salience on dual-task processing efficiency. One hundred and one undergraduate students ( N =20 in each of Experiments 1a to 3 N = 21 in Experiment 4) performed a redundant-target task either by itself (Experiment 1a) or whilst performing a manual tracking task (Experiments 1b-4). The tracking task required participants to maneuver a joystick using both hands to align a cursor with a moving red target. The detection task required participants to press a joystick button bimanually whenever a target appeared at a location in the peripheral visual field. Experiments 1a, 1b, and Experiment 4 employed “T” as the target item and “L” as distractor items that appeared randomly rotated in 90° steps. In Experiment 2, target salience was increased by employing “X” as the target item and “O” for the distractor items. Experiment 3 tested peripheral target processing in the absence of distractors hence, only the target item “T” was employed. Processing efficiency in the target-detection task was calculated using measures of resiliency (Little et al., 2015) or workload capacity (Townsend & Eidels, 2011). In all five experiments, processing of redundant targets was less efficient than predicted by a standard parallel race model (Raab, 1962 Townsend & Eidels, 2011). Surprisingly, processing efficiency differed negligibly between the single and dual-task conditions. Capacity may be protected from task-load effects due to separate information-processing resource pools within the central and peripheral visual fields (Wickens, 2002). Neither increasing the discriminability between targets and distractors, nor removing distractors entirely, had any effect on redundant-target processing efficiency. Results suggest target processing in the visual periphery is capacity-limited, but that processing efficiency is robust against changes to concurrent task load or target salience.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2017
Abstract: This study tested whether the display of rings indicating the probability of target detection would improve human performance on a simulated active sonar detection task. Participants viewed a series of simulated sonar returns and decided whether a target was present or not. Participants performed the task both with and without uncertainty range rings that indicated 90% and 10% detectability ranges. The probability of detection rings did not improve the overall ability of participants to distinguish targets from noise, but did appear to influence response bias and spatial attention. These results suggest that displaying probability of detection may not be an effective way of improving the performance of sonar system operators.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.1037/A0019570
Abstract: Color and intensity coding provide perceptual cues to segregate categories of objects within a visual display, allowing operators to search more efficiently for needed information. Even within a perceptually distinct subset of display elements, however, it may often be useful to prioritize items representing urgent or task-critical information. The design of symbology to produce search asymmetries (Treisman & Souther, 1985) offers a potential technique for doing this, but it is not obvious from existing models of search that an asymmetry observed in the absence of extraneous visual stimuli will persist within a complex color- or intensity-coded display. To address this issue, in the current study we measured the strength of a visual search asymmetry within displays containing color- or intensity-coded extraneous items. The asymmetry persisted strongly in the presence of extraneous items that were drawn in a different color (Experiment 1) or a lower contrast (Experiment 2) than the search-relevant items, with the targets favored by the search asymmetry producing highly efficient search. The asymmetry was attenuated but not eliminated when extraneous items were drawn in a higher contrast than search-relevant items (Experiment 3). Results imply that the coding of symbology to exploit visual search asymmetries can facilitate visual search for high-priority items even within color- or intensity-coded displays.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2011
DOI: 10.1037/A0024243
Abstract: Automated diagnostic aids prone to false alarms often produce poorer human performance in signal detection tasks than equally reliable miss-prone aids. However, it is not yet clear whether this is attributable to differences in the perceptual salience of the automated aids' misses and false alarms or is the result of inherent differences in operators' cognitive responses to different forms of automation error. The present experiments therefore examined the effects of automation false alarms and misses on human performance under conditions in which the different forms of error were matched in their perceptual characteristics. Young adult participants performed a simulated baggage x-ray screening task while assisted by an automated diagnostic aid. Judgments from the aid were rendered as text messages presented at the onset of each trial, and every trial was followed by a second text message providing response feedback. Thus, misses and false alarms from the aid were matched for their perceptual salience. Experiment 1 found that even under these conditions, false alarms from the aid produced poorer human performance and engendered lower automation use than misses from the aid. Experiment 2, however, found that the asymmetry between misses and false alarms was reduced when the aid's false alarms were framed as neutral messages rather than explicit misjudgments. Results suggest that automation false alarms and misses differ in their inherent cognitive salience and imply that changes in diagnosis framing may allow designers to encourage better use of imperfectly reliable automated aids.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.AAP.2015.03.033
Abstract: Texting while driving is risky but common. This study evaluated how texting using a Head-Mounted Display, Google Glass, impacts driving performance. Experienced drivers performed a classic car-following task while using three different interfaces to text: fully manual interaction with a head-down smartphone, vocal interaction with a smartphone, and vocal interaction with Google Glass. Fully manual interaction produced worse driving performance than either of the other interaction methods, leading to more lane excursions and variable vehicle control, and higher workload. Compared to texting vocally with a smartphone, texting using Google Glass produced fewer lane excursions, more braking responses, and lower workload. All forms of texting impaired driving performance compared to undistracted driving. These results imply that the use of Google Glass for texting impairs driving, but its Head-Mounted Display configuration and speech recognition technology may be safer than texting using a smartphone.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.AAP.2009.10.004
Abstract: With cellular phones and portable music players becoming a staple in everyday life, questions have arisen regarding the attentional deficits that might occur when such devices are used while performing other tasks. Here, we used a street-crossing task in an immersive virtual environment to test how this sort of ided attention affects pedestrian behavior when crossing a busy street. Thirty-six participants navigated through a series of unsigned intersections by walking on a manual treadmill in a virtual environment. While crossing, participants were undistracted, engaged in a hands free cell phone conversation, or listening to music on an iPod. Pedestrians were less likely to successfully cross the road when conversing on a cell phone than when listening to music, even though they took more time to initiate their crossing when conversing on a cell phone ( approximately 1.5s). This success rate difference was driven largely by failures to cross the road in the allotted trial time period (30s), suggesting that when conversing on a cell phone pedestrians are less likely to recognize and act on crossing opportunities.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2008
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2012
Abstract: An increasing number of commercial training products claim to improve older driver performance by training underlying cognitive abilities. However, research examining transfer of such training to driving performance is limited. The current study examined whether 16 hours of training on a commercial training package improved older adults’ performance in a high-fidelity driving simulator. Data showed no differential improvements between the training group and a control group on any driving performance measure following training. The commercial training program did not improve the simulated driving performance of older adults.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-2001
Abstract: By monitoring subjects' eye movements during a visual search task, we examined the possibility that the mechanism responsible for guiding attention during visual search has no memory for which locations have already been examined. Subjects did reexamine some items during their search, but the pattern of revisitations did not fit the predictions of the memoryless search model. In addition, a large proportion of the refixations were directed at the target, suggesting that the revisitations were due to subjects' remembering which items had not been adequately identified. We also examined the patterns of fixations and compared them with the predictions of a memoryless search model. Subjects' fixation patterns showed an increasing hazard function, whereas the memoryless model predicts a flat function. Lastly, we found no evidence suggesting that fixations were guided by amnesic covert scans that scouted the environment for new items during fixations. Results do not support the claims of the memoryless search model, and instead suggest that visual search does have memory.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-08-2023
DOI: 10.1177/00187208231196738
Abstract: To examine the extent to which increased automation transparency can mitigate the potential negative effects of low and high automation reliability on disuse and misuse of automated advice, and perceived trust in automation. Automated decision aids that vary in the reliability of their advice are increasingly used in workplaces. Low-reliability automation can increase disuse of automated advice, while high-reliability automation can increase misuse. These effects could be reduced if the rationale underlying automated advice is made more transparent. Participants selected the optimal UV to complete missions. The Recommender (automated decision aid) assisted participants by providing advice however, it was not always reliable. Participants determined whether the Recommender provided accurate information and whether to accept or reject advice. The level of automation transparency (medium, high) and reliability (low: 65%, high: 90%) were manipulated between-subjects. With high- compared to low-reliability automation, participants made more accurate (correctly accepted advice and identified whether information was accurate/inaccurate) and faster decisions, and reported increased trust in automation. Increased transparency led to more accurate and faster decisions, lower subjective workload, and higher usability ratings. It also eliminated the increased automation disuse associated with low-reliability automation. However, transparency did not mitigate the misuse associated with high-reliability automation. Transparency protected against low-reliability automation disuse, but not against the increased misuse potentially associated with the reduced monitoring and verification of high-reliability automation. These outcomes can inform the design of transparent automation to improve human-automation teaming under conditions of varied automation reliability.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 20-07-2023
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000484
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-03-2017
Abstract: A series of experiments examined human operators’ strategies for interacting with highly (93%) reliable automated decision aids in a binary signal detection task. Operators often interact with automated decision aids in a suboptimal way, achieving performance levels lower than predicted by a statistically ideal model of information integration. To better understand operators’ inefficient use of decision aids, we compared participants’ automation-aided performance levels with the predictions of seven statistical models of collaborative decision making. Participants performed a binary signal detection task that asked them to classify random dot images as either blue or orange dominant. They made their judgments either unaided or with assistance from a 93% reliable automated decision aid that provided either graded (Experiments 1 and 3) or binary (Experiment 2) cues. We compared automation-aided performance with the predictions of seven statistical models of collaborative decision making, including a statistically optimal model and Robinson and Sorkin’s contingent criterion model. Automation-aided sensitivity hewed closest to the predictions of the two least efficient collaborative models, well short of statistically ideal levels. Performance was similar whether the aid provided graded or binary judgments. Model comparisons identified potential strategies by which participants integrated their judgments with the aid’s. Results lend insight into participants’ automation-aided decision strategies and provide benchmarks for predicting automation-aided performance levels.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2012
DOI: 10.1037/A0026705
Abstract: Modern theory explains visual selective attention as a competition for receptive fields in the extrastriate cortex. The present study examined whether this competition contributes to older adults' difficulty in processing visual clutter. In 2 experiments, young and older adult subjects made same-different judgments of target shapes in displays with or without clutter. The target shapes were either high or low in discriminability. The spatial separation between targets varied across trials, and the effects of competitive selection were gauged through decrements in task performance that resulted as separation decreased. Both age groups showed a competition-in-clutter effect, evincing a stronger influence of target separation within cluttered displays. However, the costs of clutter in general and the strength of the competition-in-clutter effect more specifically were both substantially larger for older adults. Effects of clutter and competition also varied with stimulus discriminability judgments of highly discriminable stimuli evinced no intertarget competition in uncluttered displays for either age group, while judgments of less discriminable stimuli showed competition whether clutter was present or not. Results suggest that clutter disproportionately degrades older adults' visual performance by forcing more careful stimulus resolution, engendering stronger competition for selection.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2009
DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.1.110
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 28-06-2013
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2014
Abstract: An experiment tested statistically lay decision makers’ use of error bars in a graph reading task. Participants viewed two-point dot plots, with each point representing a s le mean. Across conditions, means were accompanied by error bars of different sizes. Graphs were described as plots of consumer product ratings, and participants were asked to judge whether the products represented in each graph were rated differently or about the same. Signal detection analysis showed no influence of error bars on participants’ sensitivity or bias, and on average performance was poorer and far more liberal than predicted by a simple decision rule that classified the two data points as different if their error bars did not overlap. Results suggest that non-expert graph readers make little use of error bars in drawing
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 20-09-2021
DOI: 10.1177/09567976211007559
Abstract: The vigilance decrement is a decline in signal detection rate that occurs over time on a sustained-attention task. The effect has typically been ascribed to conservative shifts of response bias and losses of perceptual sensitivity. Recent work, though, has suggested that sensitivity losses in vigilance tasks are spurious, and other findings have implied that attentional lapses contribute to vigilance failures. To test these possibilities, we used Bayesian hierarchical modeling to compare psychometric curves for the first and last blocks of a visual vigilance task. Participants were a convenience s le of 99 young adults. Data showed evidence for all three postulated mechanisms of vigilance loss: a conservative shift of response bias, a decrease in perceptual sensitivity, and a tendency toward more frequent attentional lapses. Results confirm that sensitivity losses are possible in a sustained-attention task but indicate that mental lapses can also contribute to the vigilance decrement.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-02-2018
Abstract: An experiment used workload capacity analysis to quantify automation usage strategy across different task difficulty and display format types in a speeded task. Workload capacity measures the efficiency of concurrent information processing and can serve as a gauge of automation usage strategy in speeded decision tasks. The present study used workload capacity analysis to investigate automation usage strategy while information display format and task difficulty were manipulated. Subjects performed a speeded judgment task assisted by an automated aid that issued decision cues at varying onset times. Response time distributions were converted to measures of workload capacity. Two variants of a workload capacity measure, C zOR and C zAND , gave evidence that operators moderated their own decision times both in anticipation of and following the arrival of the aid’s diagnosis under difficult task conditions regardless of display format. Assistance from an automated decision aid may cause operators to delay their own responses in a speeded decision task, producing joint response time distributions that are slower than optimal. Even when it renders its own judgments quickly and with high accuracy, an automated decision aid may slow responses from a user. Automation designers should consider the relative costs and benefits of response accuracy and time when choosing whether and how to implement an automated decision aid.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-02-2018
Publisher: Inderscience Publishers
Date: 2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-2011
Abstract: Objective: An experiment aimed to test whether design of symbology to produce visual search asymmetries might facilitate target detection in cluttered displays. Background: A visual search asymmetry exists between two stimuli when a target of one type is found efficiently among distractors of the second type but a target of the second type is found with difficulty among distractors of the first type. Asymmetries have generally been studied within relatively sparse displays. In the present study, the authors tested whether an asymmetry driven by stimulus familiarity persists within heavily cluttered imagery. Method: In this study, 10 participants performed a visual search task using stimuli (canonical vs. reversed Ns) known to produce a search asymmetry. Search stimuli were embedded within geospatial images containing either low or high levels of clutter. A decision theoretic index of sensitivity served as the dependent measure. Results: The search asymmetry was robust against the presence of heavy display clutter. Specifically, sensitivity was greater when the target was a reversed N rather than an N, and this pattern remained within cluttered displays. Time-accuracy analysis revealed that the search asymmetry increased the rate of information accumulation roughly equally within low- and high- clutter images. Conclusion: Search asymmetries are robust against heavy, spatially continuous visual clutter. Application: Design of display symbology to produce visual search asymmetries can offset the costs of visual clutter, maximizing detectability of task-critical information in complex displays.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1002/CFP2.1059
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2004
DOI: 10.3758/BF03196712
Abstract: Previous research has indicated that saccade target selection during visual search is influenced by scanning history. Already inspected items are less likely to be chosen as saccade targets as long as the number intervening saccades is small. Here, we adapted Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to assess the role of intentional and automatic processes in saccade target selection. Results indicate a large automatic component biasing participants to move their eyes to unexamined locations. However, an intentional component allowed participants to both reinspect old items and aid their selection of new items. A second experiment examined inhibition of return (IOR) as a candidate for the observed automatic component. IOR was found for items that had been previously examined. It is concluded that both automatic and intentional memory traces are available to guide the eyes during search.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2008
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2007
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2006.11.004
Abstract: Modern theories conceptualize visual selective attention as a competition between objects for the control of cortical receptive fields (RFs). Implicit in this framework is the suggestion that spatially proximal objects, which draw from overlapping pools of RFs, should be more difficult to represent in parallel and with excess capacity than spatially separated objects. The present experiments tested this prediction using analysis of response time distributions in a redundant-targets letter identification task. Data revealed that excess-capacity parallel processing is possible when redundant targets are widely separated within the visual field, but that capacity is near fixed when targets are adjacent. Even at the largest separations tested, however, processing capacity remained strongly limited.
Publisher: Aerospace Medical Association
Date: 06-2013
Abstract: The design of data link messaging systems to ensure optimal pilot performance requires empirical guidance. The current study examined the effects of display format (auditory, visual, or bimodal) and visual display position (adjacent to instrument panel or mounted on console) on pilot performance. Subjects performed five 20-min simulated single-pilot flights. During each flight, subjects received messages from a simulated air traffic controller. Messages were delivered visually, auditorily, or bimodally. Subjects were asked to read back each message aloud and then perform the instructed maneuver. Visual and bimodal displays engendered lower subjective workload and better altitude tracking than auditory displays. Readback times were shorter with the two unimodal visual formats than with any of the other three formats. Advantages for the unimodal visual format ranged in size from 2.8 s to 3.8 s relative to the bimodal upper left and auditory formats, respectively. Auditory displays allowed slightly more head-up time (3 to 3.5 seconds per minute) than either visual or bimodal displays. Position of the visual display had only modest effects on any measure. Combined with the results from previous studies by Helleberg and Wickens and Lancaster and Casali the current data favor visual and bimodal displays over auditory displays unimodal auditory displays were favored by only one measure, head-up time, and only very modestly. Data evinced no statistically significant effects of visual display position on performance, suggesting that, contrary to expectations, the placement of a visual data link display may be of relatively little consequence to performance.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-10-2019
Abstract: To investigate whether manipulating the format of an automated decision aid's cues can improve participants' information integration strategies in a signal detection task. Automation-aided decision making is often suboptimal, falling well short of statistically ideal levels. The choice of format in which the cues from the aid are displayed may help users to better understand and integrate the aid's judgments with their own. Participants performed a signal detection task that asked them to classify random dot images as either blue or orange dominant. They made their judgments either unaided or with assistance from a 93% reliable automated decision aid. The aid provided a binary judgment, along with an estimate of signal strength in the form of either a raw value, a likelihood ratio, or a confidence rating (Experiments 1 and 2) or a binary judgment along with either a verbal or verbal-visuospatial expression of confidence (Experiment 3). Aided sensitivity was benchmarked to the predictions of various statistical models of collaborative decision making. Aided performance was suboptimal, matching the predictions of some of the least efficient models. Most importantly, performance was similar across cue formats. Results indicate that changes to the format in which cues from a signal detection aid are rendered are unlikely to dramatically improve the efficiency of automation-aided decision making.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.APERGO.2018.02.022
Abstract: Head-up and wearable displays, such as Google Glass™, are sometimes marketed as safe in-vehicle alternatives to phone-based displays, as they allow drivers to receive messages without eye-off-the-road glances. However, head-up displays can still compromise driver performance (e.g., He et al., 2015b), as the distracting effect of interacting with any device will depend on the user's multitasking strategies. The present experiment examined drivers' interaction with a head-down smartphone display and a wearable head-up display. Participants performed a simulated driving task while receiving and responding to text messages via smartphone or the head-mounted display (HMD) on the Google Glass™. Incoming messages were signaled by an auditory alert, and responses were made vocally. When using Google Glass, participants' responses were quicker than that of smartphone, and the time to engage in a task did not vary according to lane-keeping difficulty. Results suggest that a willingness to engage more readily in distracting tasks may offset the potential safety benefits of wearable devices.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-2014
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000010
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-08-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2010
DOI: 10.3758/APP.72.2.308
Location: United States of America
No related grants have been discovered for Jason McCarley.